


Your Horoscope For Today Will Lie

by orphan_account



Category: American Idol RPF
Genre: 1950s, 5000-10000 Words, Alternate Universe, Gen, Hardboiled Detective, noir
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 22:15:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The cases that, at first glance, look open-and-shut, are usually the ones that make you wish you had a boring job.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your Horoscope For Today Will Lie

**Author's Note:**

  * For [llaras](https://archiveofourown.org/users/llaras/gifts).



She was a petite blonde, hair drawn back in a ponytail, wearing a navy coat and a knee-length gray skirt. She looked like she'd just come off a train from someplace in the Midwest; too wholesome looking for somebody who'd been in this town for longer than a few weeks. She looked around my office, wide-eyed.

 

"Mr. Lambert, I presume?"

 

"Yes," I answered and sat up from my slouch. I folded up the newspaper I was reading. I ended horoscopes up and I quickly glanced at mine: _"You're going to spend the entire week listening and talking to other people, and __you're going to have a humdinger of a good time__. On Sunday, someone is going to have a kind of loony idea, and the sheer lunacy of it is going to thrill you. Do whatever they have in mind. Take a risk. Have fun"_.

 

"I'd like to hire you to find my husband."

 

***

 

After that first conversation with Katy Allen, I was sure it was going to be yet another L.A. classic: guy comes to the city looking for a big break, realizes he doesn't want to go back, disappears. I thought I'll call around, drop into the bar his wife said he got a job at, find him, deliver the news to the missus and the case'd be closed by the end of the week. I looked at the photo she'd handed me – a smiling guy, cute, dressed in a plaid shirt – and thought there was no way this guy was involved in anything that's going to give me trouble.

 

Boy, was I wrong.

 

***

 

Katy Allen said her husband played the piano in Simon Cowell's club at Venice Boulevard, so I decided to start looking there.

 

When I entered the club at five it was still mostly empty. There were two men at the bar, staring at their drinks. The barman looked up at me and his eyes weren't exactly friendly. Clearly, I was not considered the appropriate clientele. Since I was already here, I decided I might as well start the day by introducing a little booze to my system.

 

"I'll have a scotch," I said to him.

 

I didn't merit a verbal acknowledgement, but a glass with clear liquid did land in front of me. I threw it back and motioned for a refill. Jerking my head towards the piano on the dais at one side of the room I asked, "Anyone playing today?"

 

"Probably not." I waited for more information, but it didn't come. Apparently the barman wasn't the chatty type.

 

"I thought you had a pianist here in the evenings?"

 

"We used to." Another silence stretched, but just as I was about to prompt him for more, he continued. "The last guy got fired day before yesterday though. Not sure if there's a replacement yet."

 

"Fired?" I decided to press on. I got two full sentences on my last question. Maybe he was warming up to me.

 

"That's all I've heard. You want another one?" He gestured towards my glass.

 

I nodded my head and ordered another drink. The glare that accompanied his first statement told me I probably wouldn't be getting any more answers out of him. Time to find someone who would be more forthcoming. I looked around at the bar's patrons and noticed a man at one of the tables towards the back. He was slouched in his chair, one hand on a glass of something that looked like whiskey, staring at the table and looking right at home. Probably a regular, so he might have an idea what happened to the entertainment.

 

I took my glass and started toward his table.

 

"Mind if I join you?"

 

He lifted his eyes to look at me and motioned with his free hand towards the empty chair across from him. "Why not?"

 

I sat down, he went back to staring at the tabletop. For the life of me, I couldn't see what was so fascinating about it. Maybe I wasn't drunk enough yet to appreciate it.

 

"So, I've heard at the bar there's no music today?"

 

"Yeah," he mumbled without looking at me.

 

"Why did they fire the guy?"

 

"He had an argument with Cowell on Wednesday when they were closing. You want to keep your job, you don't argue with the boss," he said shrugging his shoulders. "Hell, with this guy? You don't argue with him if you want to keep working in this _town_."

 

Suddenly, he looked right at me, dropping the easy-going veneer abruptly. "He also really doesn't like people who ask questions, so maybe you should finish your drink and get going. Questions lead to trouble and I wouldn't want to get into any by answering them."

 

I took another sip from my drink and considered what I'd just heard. So Simon Cowell wasn't a very nice guy - but then if you were one, you didn't last long in this town.

 

***

 

If you want to get answers about someone, check with the competition.

 

I left the bar and looked around the neighborhood. There were a few apartment buildings, a diner on one corner and a drugstore across from it. None of these places were ones that could help me with my questions, so I turned and went down the street. Two blocks down I hit the jackpot. There was a seedy-looking bar, the sign above the door proclaiming it to be called _Black Betty_. I pushed the door open and went in.

 

The inside of the bar was just as unwelcoming as the outside and the patrons were borderline antisocial, but I got the information I came for. Apparently Allen had another gig on weekends at a place on the other side of town, so chances were, he would show up there tomorrow.

 

***

 

The next morning, I set out to follow the lead on Allen. I attempted to scrounge up a breakfast before I left my apartment, but all my fridge held was orange juice and a jar of something that might have, once upon a long-gone time been pickles, but now looked close to sprouting tentacles and starting its own civilization. Looks like I'd have to stop at a diner for breakfast and coffee on my way to the office.

 

I picked a random diner I passed on the way and stopped the car. Before I could exit my car, through the windows I noticed Katy Allen sitting at a corner booth inside. I almost didn't recognize her - gone was the country girl, seemingly lost in the big city. Now she was wearing a green dress with her hair was down in artless waves and bright red lipstick. She looked out of place here, in a run-down diner with cheap plastic seats and grimy windows.

 

When we talked the day before, she'd claimed not to know the city or have any friends here, having just moved from Arkansas to join her husband. She'd also looked frail and scared, while this woman had the demeanor of a silent movie femme fatale.

 

Still sitting in my car, I wondered which version of Katy Allen was real. That question also brought round another one: if there was something else going on here, what was my role in this masquerade?

 

Inside the diner, she tapped her nails impatiently against the table and looked at her watch. I decided to stay put and see who or what she was waiting for. I passed the time thinking longingly about the coffee I could see being distributed by the bored waitress inside.

 

After a few minutes, a dark haired man came in and went to her table. He took a place opposite her and I could see a short conversation taking place. Katy passed him a piece of paper he folded up and put into the inside pocked of his jacket. Then he took out an envelope from his briefcase and slid it across the table to her.

 

I watched her open the envelope, survey its contents and put it in her purse with a nod. Moments like these, I wished for a sidekick with lip-reading skills.

 

I saw the man rise from the table and turn towards the door. I quickly rooted around in the junk accumulated in my backseat and pulled out a camera. As the man was leaving, I snapped his photo and, after a moment of hesitation, I took one of Katy Allen too. You never know what might come in handy.

 

I was trying to figure out what was going on in here, but however hard I might try, I had far too few puzzle pieces to see what the whole picture was.

 

She finished her tea and left the diner. I considered whether to follow her or go into the diner and see if one of the patrons or the waitress hadn't by any chance heard what they was talking about. In the end the diner won. Mostly because it held the promise of coffee.

 

Once inside and sitting at the counter armed with a cup of what I could swear was the foulest beverage in town, I put my charm-the-natives smile on and asked the waitress about the mystery man.

 

"You mean Danny? If you ask me, he's bad news. Some of the people he meets here? You wouldn't want to meet them alone in a dark alley, that's for sure," she shrugged.

 

I took another gulp of the coffee and tried very hard not to wince. It was a sign of how desperate I was for caffeine that I was still drinking it.

 

"He come here to do business often?" I prompted her.

 

"From time to time." She took a fresh pot of coffee and went to circle around the room to fill the other customers' cups. When she came back, she continued, "I've seen him with that woman here once before, you know." Oh, how I loved gossips. She was clearly dying to share what she had on him. "The first time though there was another man here with them."

 

"Was that him?" I asked showing her a photo of Kris Allen.

 

"Yes. And he seemed like such a nice boy too," she tutted disapprovingly. "Such a shame."

 

"Did you by any chance hear what they were talking about?"

 

She looked at me with suspicion.

 

"You a cop?"

 

"No. I'm a private detective. The man on the photo has gone missing and I'm trying to find him."

 

"Well, generally if you hang out with the likes of Gokey and then go missing shortly after, the most likely place you'll end up is at the bottom of the river." She glanced at the photo once again and shook her head. "Such a shame."

 

***

 

I took the film from my camera and went to the police labs. The techs were notoriously underpaid and never minded doing a favor on the side. They were also a great source of information when prompted with an extra Benjamin or two.

 

I waited while the photos were developed and asked around about Gokey and Cowell. Both were varying degrees of bad news and Cowell was said to have connections to the mob, but there was no apparent connection between them. Looked like I had to figure this out using the good old trial-and-error.

 

***

 

I arrived at the bar just before eight and noticed a beat-up Buick parked in the side alley. It matched the description of Kris's car Katy had given me. Seems I was in the right place.

 

When I entered _The Aggie Lounge_, the weekend crowd was milling around. It was one long room, with booths along both walls; a few people were playing pool towards the back of the room. I went to the bar, ordered a drink and settled at a table with a good view of the piano I spotted set up on the side.

 

I was staring at the ice cubes in my glass as if they could help me solve this case when I was pulled out of my reverie by the sounds of the piano. It was hard to see in the dim light whether the pianist was Kris Allen, but the evening definitely wasn't going to be lost. The melody was beautiful, something that sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn't quite place it. It was understated, but poignant in its simplicity. I let myself be drawn in, forgetting for a moment I was here on a job.

 

Then a voice joined in and for a moment I wondered what the singer was still doing in a place like this when he clearly had enough talent to move onto bigger and better things. I was fascinated by the music he was creating and had to forcibly shake myself awake to focus on what brought me here in the first place. I had to get closer and see if this man was Allen.

 

I stood up from the chair and made my way towards the dais. The few patrons paid no attention, lost either in their drinks or conversation. I weaved my way between the tables, the music still flowing through the room. I could see now that the pianist was in fact the man I was hired to find, but he looked nothing like the country bumpkin I imagined him to be. He seemed lost in the music, eyes half-closed and singing the lyrics softly, his mouth quirked a little to the right.

 

It was a fascinating scene and I let myself drink it in, waiting for him to finish the song and notice me. Finally, he hit the last chord and let the sound fade out. He lifted his head and startled as if he didn't expect anyone to stand next to him. Now that I was finally looking him in the face in person, I could tell my first reaction when I saw his photo was correct - he was

 

"Um, hello?" he asked haltingly.

 

"Are you Kris Allen?" I asked, but I was already sure of the answer. He looked even better in person. Shame about the wife, because the guy was exactly my type.

 

"Who wants to know?" He looked at me warily.

 

"I'm Adam Lambert. I'm a PI, your wife hired me to find you," I held out my hand to him. "You didn't coming home and you didn't come to work. How about we talk?"

 

**

 

We moved to my table and Kris smiled sheepishly as he sat down.

 

"I really didn't want to worry her. She wasn't supposed to be here before Sunday." He ran a hand through his hair. I had to remind myself not to be deceived by the plaid and the cuteness. If his wife was just playing a role with me yesterday, who's to say he wasn't doing the same?

 

"So what happened with Cowell? What was the argument about?"

 

"I'm not sure. He thought someone was going to try to steal something from him and I guess he thought it was me," he said. When I looked at him now, he seemed the least likely man to commit the crime in this city. He seemed to be radiating honesty and wholesomeness. However, for someone unbothered by the conversation his eyes were wandering the room too much. Was he waiting for someone else tonight?

 

"I wanted to stay out of Cowell's sight for a few days. I figured I'd lay low for a while, he'll find the right guy and I'll go back once I'm in the clear."

 

"How's that working out for you?"

 

He looked sheepish. "I should probably call Katy, so she won't worry. Mind waiting a moment? I can use the phone in the back," he asked, looking at me questioningly.

 

"Sure."

 

I gulped down the rest of my drink and took a moment to appreciate the view as he went towards the back - nothing wrong with looking, is there? Just my luck that when I run into a guy who's exactly my type, he turns out to be married and possibly a crook. And it would be highly unprofessional to hit on the guy you're supposed to be finding, anyway.

 

Suddenly, a small voice at the back of my mind snapped me out of my fantasizing. Something wasn't right. Oh, yes – one, I let a guy who was probably using me as a pawn in a game I was still not sure the rules of; two, charm me into letting him out of my sight; before I could get any real answers out of him. 'Great going!' I muttered to myself. 'Give yourself a pat on the back, Lambert.'

 

I rushed to the door to catch Kris before he left, but the door slammed behind me just as the taillights of his car disappear down the street.

 

'Great job, no kidding.' Any minute now I was going to turn in to the guy who's talking back to his internal voice. Great.

 

***

 

I was annoyed I'd let myself be distracted by Allen and lost sight of him as a result. Technically, though, my job was done - I'd found the man, so I should just call his wife, tell her the good news and forget the case. But something about his story didn't ring true - though I had no idea yet what might the truth be - and I had the nagging feeling that even though I was done with the case, the case might not necessarily be done with me.

 

Right now, however, I didn't have many clues. I should probably let it go, but I'd never really been good at that. I didn't like the fact Simon Cowell was involved in it in some way - in this town it was a good idea to keep as far away from a certain kind of people as you could. And that guy was most assuredly one of them.

 

I returned to my office to make the call and wrap up the case. As I turned into the street, I noticed two police cars parked across the street from my building. Uh oh. The neighborhood wasn't exactly good, but two cop cars sitting on the street and for no visible reason? That spelled bad news. I hoped it had nothing to do with me, but with the luck I'd had so far this week, the chances of it being a coincidence were slim to none.

 

I noticed a uniformed cop sitting in the patrol car. His partner was leaning against the side, smoking a cigarette and giving me the stink eye. The other car was an unmarked Ford: it just screamed cop car for anyone who knew their head from their tail. It was empty, though, and whoever came in it was nowhere to be seen.

 

I opened the front door and walked in. On my way up the stairs I heard noises coming down from the second floor. When I got there, I looked down the corridor and saw two plainclothes cops standing in my office. Two things were wrong with this picture. First, coming to your office to find cops ransacking the place was never good. The other thing was, the only reason I was able to see them from the top of the stairs was because the door to my office wasn't in its place. When I came closer I noticed the reason for that - it was laying on the floor in the waiting room, lock ripped out.

 

The cops were busy throwing the contents of my drawers haphazardly on the floor. The filing cabinet looked like it had already got the same treatment a moment before. The party must've been going on for quite a while, because the whole room was a jumbled mess. I suppressed the part of me that wanted to give in to panic and tried to approach the scene with cool professionalism.

 

"Ever heard it's polite to knock when you visit?" I asked.

 

They raised their heads to look at me.

 

"No point in knocking if you're not there," the taller of the two replied. I didn't like the nasty grin that accompanied his statement. That kind of grin usually doesn't bode well for the recipient. It's the kind you get right before your face is about to get ground into the floor.

 

"That's not very nice of you. I would've offered you a drink, but I only do that to guests I like." I thought fleetingly that right about now might have been the time to dial the sarcasm down a notch or ten.

 

"No reason to be nice to a murder suspect," the other one added and I could already see my day going from "bad" to "very, very bad".

 

***

 

The conversation at the station went as well as you can imagine. There was the ever-popular punch to the kidneys, threats, and handcuffs that were snapped on way too tight – and not in the fun way.

 

"So, Lambert, why did you do it?" The taller cop decided not to waste any time with pleasantries like "_Did_ you do it"?

 

"Did I do what?"

 

That question was answered by a photo thrown on the table between us. It showed a man lying face down on a concrete floor. He was dead. That much was clear from the pool of blood surrounding him. The surroundings looked nondescript, just your average warehouse with no discerning characteristics. That's probably why whoever did that chose this particular place.

 

The guy, on the other hand, I had no problem identifying, since I'd seen him just a few hours earlier with Katy Allen. However, it left several more pressing questions: why was Danny Gokey dead? And why was I the suspect?

 

"So, ever seen the guy, or are you going to deny that too?" Shorty didn't look like he was warming up to me.

 

"His name is Danny Gokey, but I've never actually met him. Before today I didn't even know his name." I shrugged my shoulders to convey how much I did not care. From the way the table's edge suddenly found itself in my stomach, the boys didn't seem to like my attitude.

 

"From what I can see, you spent a lot of time today asking around about him. You got his photo, too. And then, a few hours later, the guy is found dead," Blues pushed on.

 

"Isn't one of you supposed to be the Good Cop?"

 

It just figures that I would have the luck not only to get two Bad Cops, but also ones with no sense of humor.

 

At this point the conversation started to get very repetitive: they tried to tell me I'd done it, I tried to explain I didn't and then they'd try for a bit of pointless violence to try to get me to go with their theory. Gotta admire the dedication.

 

By the time they finally spared a few minutes to listen what I was saying and went to verify my alibi, I think I'd had a full show of the greatest hits of police interrogation. Finally, Shorty came back into the room and reluctantly took off the handcuffs.

 

I massaged my wrists to restore the circulation. They felt like they've been repeatedly whacked with a blunt tool. Although, come to think of it, that might be the pain radiating from my kidneys and stomach.

 

"You know, we could probably still slap you with accessory," Blues said wistfully and I wasted no time in getting the hell out of there.

 

***

 

Since my none of my efforts so far yielded any viable results, I decided to go back to my office. By now I was mostly hoping for a stroke of dumb luck to help me solve this case, because from what I knew of this far, everybody involved in it seemed to be unduly invested in keeping what they knew as far from me as they possibly could.

 

I left my car on the sidewalk down the block from the entrance and walked back up. Just as I was about to go in, a Cadillac Fleetwood limousine pulled up to the curb next to me. The front passenger door opened and a grim-looking guy exited the car. His face seemed to be scrunched in a permanent scowl, eyebrows knitted together. He opened the back door and made a vague motion from me towards the inside of the car.

 

"Mr. Cowell would like to talk," he said.

 

I mentally debated the sanity of getting into a dark-tinted car with a mobster and his thugs, but it didn't look like I had much choice in the matter. The thug looked ready to throw me inside if I declined the invitation.

 

I slid into the backseat, where another man was already seated. From the look of him Cowell prefered his employees to be the silent mountain of muscle type. The first thug got into the car, making me the meat in a thug sandwich. Since no one was forthcoming with introductions, I mentally dubbed the thugs Grumpy and Sleepy. If you're sitting in a confined space, squashed between two very unfriendly thugs, you have to take your entertainment where you can.

 

Across from us was the man himself. And there it was - proof that Hollywood lies. I would have thought that a man like Cowell would be at least sharply dressed. The reality was a scruffy-looking man, dressed in a nondescript shirt and slacks that not a single person possessing an ounce of good taste would describe as stylish.

 

"I have a business proposition for you, Mr. Lambert," he began without ado. "An item of great sentimental value seems to have gone missing from my safe. I'd like you to find it for me."

 

"That's it?” I blurted, then winced. If Cowell took a dislike to me, I could end up tied to a cement block in the canal quicker than you could say 'Adam Lambert has no sense of self-preservation.'

 

"I'm trying to do you a favor here and give you a way out of this situation. I know you're already aware of both the theft taking place and the identity of the thief. I wish to avoid unnecessary trouble and resolve this peacefully. However, I am not a patient man and if I find you haven't complied with my request by tomorrow noon, I will be less inclined to forget your involvement. "

 

I wanted to protest my general lack of knowledge in the matter, even if the present company wasn't any more likely to accept my innocence than the cops. "I think you overestimate how much I know about being a criminal mastermind."

 

"Just like you don't know Kristopher Allen?" he looked doubtful. "In that case, you're either a liar, a clueless idiot or the victim of the most peculiar coincidence. And I don't believe in coincidence, Mr. Lambert.

 

"I don't really care how you accomplish this task - I expect results. You have time until tomorrow noon."

 

He motioned at Grumpy to open the door and let me out of the car.

 

***

 

It was now Saturday afternoon and I was about ready to strangle whoever wrote in my horoscope for the week that _I__'m__ going to have a humdinger of a good time_.

 

The Allens were clearly not the innocents they appeared to be, and now I was sure I was in way too deep to get out of this situation unscathed.

 

Katy obviously told me a thickly edited version of the events when she hired me. My most pressing question: what exactly did she leave out? Were the Allens running some sort of con on Cowell, or were they working for him? At the very least, who was trying to set me up to be the scapegoat?

 

I had the feeling that if I didn't find some answers soon, come Monday, I might not be around to find them at all.

 

_Take a risk, have fun_. Yeah, right.

 

Once in the office, I figured a glass or two couldn't possibly make this situation any worse. And then the exhaustion of the last three days caught up with me and I fell asleep.

 

***

 

I was woken up by a pounding headache and searing pain in his neck, the former being immediately explained by the empty bottle laying next to my head and the latter by falling asleep at the desk in my office. I hazarded a look towards the window, got blinded by the light and immediately shut my eyes again. Another, much more careful look at the clock revealed the time to be 9:45. I desperately wanted to go back to sleep, preferably in more comfortable conditions, but I didn't have the time. I needed to get up and go meet Cowell if I didn't want to land into even bigger trouble than I already was.

 

I slowly got up from my chair, all my muscles reminding me forcefully why it was such a bad idea to fall asleep in the chair. I rolled my shoulders, trying to get the circulation back in my arms and looked at the mirror. Well, there goes the good second impression, I thought bitterly. My eyes were red, my hair was sticking up every which way and my clothes looked as if I've spent the last three straight days in them. Which, come to think of it, wasn't far from the truth.

 

I opened the desk drawer, took out my gun and put it back in the holster. It wouldn't do me much good if Cowell came with company, but there was something reassuring about feeling its weight against my hip. I made a move to go through the door just as it swung inwards and revealed one of Cowell's thugs standing in my doorway.

 

"You're Lambert?" he growled through his teeth.

 

"I'm sorry, but we're closed for the time being. I need to catch up on my beauty sleep. Please come by at a later date." The words were out of my mouth way before my brain caught up. The thug, completely unconcerned by my statement, grabbed me by the arm and dragged me out of the office, down the stairs and to my car.

 

"You drive," he said and poked his gun into my back to reinforce the sentiment.

 

***

 

The ride was, to say the least, uncomfortable.

 

The thug sat in the backseat and every time I glanced in the rear-view mirror, not a muscle had twitched, his scowl still firmly in place. The only movement I could discern was when he mumbled another set of directions, but even that was done with minimal effort. He looked like Grumpy's long lost brother and, since I was fresh out of names of antipathetic dwarfs, I decided to call him Grumpy Mark Two.

 

For a moment I entertained the notion of leaping out of the speeding car, but discarded it quickly. I'd rather try my luck with Cowell than the asphalt. Chances were he'd be too busy stroking his ego to actually do anything to me.

 

After a few miles we turned to go through a gate and I recognized the place we'd arrived at. It was a riverside warehouse complex, abandoned some time in the last decade when the company owning it went bankrupt. The thug in the back barked at me to park next to the building closest to the river, where I could see two other cars already.

 

I took a moment to appreciate the planning - after all, if you might end up with a dead body by the end of a meeting, you might as well schedule it near a convenient disposal site. Then I reminded myself the appreciation was a little out of place if the prospective body was your own.

 

With that in mind, I took my time parking, throwing the car into reverse and positioning it for a quick escape. Knowing Cowell's reputation, it might have been overly optimistic on my part, but a guy could hope, right?

 

The thug directed me towards a flight of stairs along the side of the warehouse. When I looked up, I saw they ended with a door at what was probably the second floor. To the side of the door was a line of wide windows and, underneath them, a rickety awning.

 

The stairs were rusty and they creaked as we ascended them. At the top Grumpy thumped his fist against the metal door, which opened wide, admitting us.

 

***

 

We entered a spacious room; the only furniture in it a desk and a few chairs. There were two sets of windows, one overlooking the inside of the warehouse, the other facing the river - these were probably the ones I saw when we were on the stairs and a closed door on the side wall. Aside from Grumpy Mark Two, the company in the room included the two thugs I had the dubious pleasure of meeting yesterday. Sleepy was the one who opened the door and was now, with uncharacteristic enthusiasm, patting me down. He found the gun in my arm holster and took it out.

 

"Thought you could just waltz in here with a piece, huh?" I was sorely tempted to reply with something flippant about how if I was given enough time, I would've remembered to dress for the occasion, but for once thought better. Didn't matter though, since apparently the gun was enough reason for Sleepy's fist to get reacquainted with my back. Well, it's not like at this point I'd be able to tell the pains apart anyway.

 

I scanned the room for a possible escape route if the meeting got too heated for my liking. Grumpy took a place by the door, so that way was out. I took a few steps to the outside facing windows, hoping my companions wouldn't mind. As I thought, they were the ones just above the canopy. I eyed the drop suspiciously. You'd have to be crazy to use it as an emergency exit. The canopy looked nowhere near enough sturdy to support a man dropping on it from six feet, not to mention that the route ended in the LA River. That alone should have discouraged anyone sane from even considering the option.

 

The door in the back of the room opened and Cowell came into the room. His fashion sense hadn't improved since last time I saw him, but judging from his expression, his temper had taken a serious turn for the worse.

 

"So," he began, again without preamble, "have you given thought to my offer?"

 

"Not to disappoint, but there wasn't much to think about. I don't think I can help you."

 

"I don't like it when people think they can do one over on me. It's bad for business." He sat down in the chair behind the desk, never taking his eyes off me. "It doesn't matter if you were thrown into this situation coincidentally or came up with the plan yourself. You _are_ involved and if I just let it slide, it will send the wrong signal to others. Suddenly every punk in the streets will think that they can do it too."

 

I had a really bad feeling about where this conversation was going.

 

"So I'm supposed to be an example?"

 

"It's nothing personal, Mr. Lambert." He looked towards Sleepy. "But Robert here will have to make sure you don't look like you got away from this clean." The thug still had my gun in his hand and was pointing it more or less towards my knees. "I'd like to think that someone with your sense of theatrics would understand." Cowell gave me an ugly smirk.

 

I don't know about you, but I like my knees just the way they are, without any bonus bullet holes. Turns out, you didn't have to be insane to consider jumping out of a third story window. You just had to have the right motivation.

 

I hurled myself through the window, which shattered obligingly, the glass shards flying every which way. I hit the awning hard and it made a groaning noise, but held. The impact sent me flying further and I ended up doing a crazy ninja roll off the canopy and dropped into the river.

 

The water was ice cold, but that was a small issue compared to the awful stench. Most of the factories upriver used it as a convenient alternative to the sewage system and I shuddered to think about what was touching my skin aside from water. I started swimming towards the bank opposite the warehouses, hoping none of Cowell's thugs were paid enough to warrant following me there.

 

***

 

I approached my building warily, since lately every time I'd been to my office, the events inevitably took an even uglier turn than I thought possible. As I drew closer, I found proof my day was still getting worse: parked in front of the entrance was a dark sedan. I could see there were two people inside it and I considered the odds of them being Cowell's thugs, waiting to catch me coming in. Or maybe it was the cops, hoping to find something that would let them pin Gokey’s murder on me. Running into either party didn't seem very appealing, so I decided to forgo the front door in favor of a less obvious entrance.

 

I turned around the corner , waited until the doors to the adjacent building opened and slipped in before they closed. I hoped that the boys in the sedan didn't know my office building could be accessed through the basement the two buildings shared. I really wasn't looking forward to another of those friendly conversations.

 

For once, luck was on my side. I managed to get to my door and, after a brief moment of panicked fumbling with my keys, opened the door and quickly shut it after me. I cursed the fact that my office windows looked out at the street, making it impossible for me to turn on the lights without being visible to anyone looking up from the street.

 

I shrugged off my coat and surveyed the damage. It looked like it was beyond hope - being drenched in river water and left to dry clearly didn't agree with it. Although it was more likely due to the fact that one would be hard-pressed to call the sludge flowing down the river water. The only thing I could do now was to walk to the bathroom and throw the coat into the bathtub, so that at least the grime won't drip on the carpet.

 

As I walked back into my office, I saw a folded piece of paper slip under my door. Having had enough surprises for the week, I retrieved my spare gun from the table drawer and sneaked over to the door. I threw it open to reveal Kris Allen, still crouching by the door to slide the card inside. I stared at him incredulously. He stared back. I noticed he had a really good deer-in-headlights look in his repertoire, too.

 

"Oh, for god's sake, are we going to stand here all day?" An exasperated voice cut into our statue act.

 

I looked into the corridor, only to see Katy Allen. I looked between them, trying to figure out what was going on.

 

"So what's on the card?" I decided to ask a question to break the awkward silence. "And how did you know where I live?"

 

Kris had the good grace to look slightly abashed. He opened his mouth to offer an explanation, but I waved my hand to cut him off.

 

"You know what? I don't even want to know."

 

He grinned.

 

***

 

Inviting them in was probably the move of an insane man. I blamed my damn crush on Kris’s stupid innocent faces. I promised myself that from next week on, I'd only taking cases involving unattractive people.

 

Once we were all inside and the door was shut, Katy turned towards me.

 

"We're sorry we pulled you into this situation, but right now, we're in this together. We have a way to resolve it and get away with a clean slate, but you'd have to help." She cocked her head to the side and gave me a measuring glance. "Are you in?"

 

I looked from her to Kris and back. Any sane person would just throw them out and not get drawn in any deeper. Then I remembered the horoscope: On Sunday, someone is going to have a kind of loony idea, and the sheer lunacy of it is going to thrill you. Do whatever they have in mind. Take a risk. Have fun. The only thing I could think was: 'It's not like it can get that much worse, right?'

 

Famous last words. But at least I'd have fun going down.


End file.
